The Free-First Growth Workflow

What's inside

Everything named here has a genuinely free tier or is open source. No credit card appears anywhere in this workflow.

Part 1 — the loop

• Signal — where to find what to make, from free sources (Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt, G2 complaints, YouTube transcripts).
• Content — make the thing once, gated by a quality check before anything ships.
• Distribution — free channels only.
• Leads — capture without paid enrichment.
• Follow-up — where the money actually is.
• Proof — the step that compounds.

Plus the exact free-tool stack, and a start order for the first 7 days so you build it in a sequence that works.

Part 2 — the implementation appendix. This is the half most workflow guides do not include:

• A. The quality gate, as code — what actually blocks a bad draft from shipping.
• B. The lead store schema.
• C. The MX check to run before every send, so you stop burning your domain on dead addresses.
• D. The outreach templates that get replies.
• E. The cron layout — the whole system on one page.
• F. The kill switch: ten lines that prevent the incident.
• G. The local-model memory setting that bites everyone once.

Who should not buy this: if you want a done-for-you service or already run a paid stack you are happy with, skip it. This is for building the loop yourself at zero recurring cost.